“She was devastated but I told her to make here own legacy at U Chicago as mine will end with me.”
Very true.
We had similar experience with a twist. DD is a multi-family member legacy, has known about it forever, and said “I’m not going there” which was fine with me. Then she started getting the mailings, started giggling at them, and one day announced she wanted to apply. Would not have happened without the mailings…
@VeryLuckyParent Why should they turn down perfectly good students for the sake of competition with the ivies. Apply the suggestion on your self. Your child, no matter how good he was shouldn’t have been admitted then. Rather than complaining about acceptance rates you should hope that every deserving student gets the place they deserve and should not be done by the rates of admission.
Again think about how you would have felt if your deserving kid had been rejected just due to the sake of lowering admit rate and despite the fact that he was a good fit.
The acceptance rate is 7.6 based on this article from WaPo
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/04/05/stanford-dean-schools-ultra-low-admit-rate-not-
something-to-boast-about/
UChicago is 6th in the league tables, and in the same tier as MIT and Caltech aceptance rates.
SCHOOL APPLICATIONS 2016 ADMIT RATE 2016 ADMIT RATE 2015
Stanford 43,997 4.7% 5.0%
Harvard 39,041 5.2% 5.3%
Columbia 36,292 6.0% 6.1%
Yale 31,455 6.3% 6.7%
Princeton 29,303 6.5% 7.1%
University of Chicago 31,286 7.6% 8.4%
MIT 19,020 7.8% 8.3%
Caltech 6,856 7.9% 8.8%
Brown 32,380 9.0% 9.5%
University of Pennsylvania 38,918 9.4% 10.2%
.
Admissions rates don’t tell you that much, i.e. the quality of the respective applicant pool and any distinguishing factors. Chicago was a great college–with a brilliant reputation in academic circles–even when its admit rate was much lower. Back then it was very self-selecting.
Admission rates do tell you some things but there is no way to tell the quality of the applicant pool unless you are an admission officer reviewing the applications. Most estimates seem to be around half of the applications aren’t qualified to be admitted based on what info we do get from admission officers at the elite schools.
@CU123 That’s precisely the argument made by Chicago’s former dean of admissions, Ted O’Neill. He has openly stated that universities are doing students are disservice by soliciting applications they know they will not accept. Alas, it is a ratings game.
@exlibris97 I’m not sure I entirely agree with your assessment. For instance when I first got mailings from U Chicago, my test scores were well below where they needed to be to get in, but the mailings encouraged me to do some research and made me all the more resolved to get my scores up. I worked really hard, got my scores up a lot, and received my offer of admission yesterday. I just don’t think it’s right to assume that they’re advertising just to decline kids. They just want to attract more kids to apply and by casting a wider net, they hope to increase the strength of the applicant pool. It does suck tho that with more applicants comes more rejections.
@elmejor21 Your last sentence confirms my statement. However, I think one of the best persons to comment on this is Chicago’s former Dean of Admissions, Ted O’Neill. He is the one who lamented the fact that they were now, to quote you, “advertising just to decline” kids. I’d add that test scores are usually the one indicator that universities are willing to discount when other factors are compelling.
@exlibris97 I get what you’re saying. I’m just not sure I think it’s as evil as others think. But hey I just got admitted so that’s pretty easy for me to think.
S would not have applied had he not been “educated” on the merits and distinctiveness (is that a word?) of UChicago via their mailings and their local receptions/school visits. S has never been to Chicago yet he was “marketed” to as claimed in the above posts. He was deferred Early Action and admitted last week and will likely attend. I commend the University for their marketing and don’t believe it is self-serving - just the opposite as it creates opportunities for students as it it did for my child. The self-serving schools are the “golden admission” schools who approach our kids and guarantee scholarship $, no application fee and no essays to apply. Chicago is not one of those schools!
Still what’s interesting in all this is that my D was marketed by every Ivy League school, UChicago, and many others but not, Stanford, MIT, Caltech (and she had no interest in these schools at all). Maybe she would have developed an interest if they had. Anyway UChicago caught here eye and we visited there along with four of the Ivies, now she will attend UChicago in the Fall.
Curiosity more than anything here, but reference to the above, where do you live and what is your Ds field of study?
Colorado, and she is interested in the molecular engineering program/physical sciences.
What are the chances of getting off of the waitlist this year due to the small applicant pool?
The smaller applicant pool which may have surprised them, might make them consider giving a lot of gap year offers to get a head start on next year’s numbers. I think for this year, the yield is already quite high, so getting off the wait list to be in the class of 2021 seems tough, but I could be wrong.